I was wondering if anyone is familiar with the Spanish building regulations concerning acceptable exit points from bedrooms (in the attic space) of a four storey apartment block. There are currently two bedrooms in the attic space of the duplex apartment. Each bedroom has a single velux roof window, which is about 5ft off the ground. The bedrooms are accessed via an internal stairs. In the case of fire, I would have difficulty exiting via the roof windows not to mind my young children or my parents who are senior citizens. I’m fairly sure the layout would contravene UK building regulations but not so sure about Spain. I would appreciate any information.
I can’t answer your query off the top of my head but I’ve got the Spanish Building Regs so will have a look and report back. I may be some time!
p.s. is the building new? If not, how old is it?
I would really appreciate if you could have a look for me. Alternatively, if you have them in electronic format send them on and I will have a go. I would think the block is less than 10 years old.
Hi – not had a chance to look myself yet but an online version is available here to download in pdf format http://www.codigotecnico.org/index.php?id=33
you need DB-SI: Seguridad en caso de incendio
If you’ve ploughed through it yet, you’ll have seen that the calculation of the number and size of means of escapes from buildings is quite complex and depends on many factors e.g. no. of users to a staircase, lenth of corridors, the designed fire-resistance etc. There seem to be no special requirements for evacuation from a living space such as you have described.
Many thanks for the link – I have had the dictionary out and have been trying to make sense of the guidelines! Appreciate all your help.
Like you I didn’t pick up specific guidelines covering what I was asking. However, it does appear that they recommend that there is always two exits. I also saw in ‘Sección SI 5 – Intervención de los bomberos’ mention of the access guidelines for fire brigade staff. It seems to suggest that each floor must provide openings and these opening cannot be more than 1.20m from the ground and the dimensions of the openings must be at least 0.80m in width and 1.20m in height.
Do you agree that I’m reading these correctly? If I am correct then I think that these guidelines would mean that the bedrooms do not offer acceptable fire escape points. Have you any idea when the above guidelines were introduced? Thanks again.
Can’t find any recommendation for two exits – can you give me the ref no?
There’s a clause that says that if the residential bulding houses more than 500 people then there must be more than one exit on the floor used for escape from the building.
Re the access for bomberos, yes, but only if the evacuation height of the building is greater than 9m as I read it.
These are Building Regulations, not guidelines. These new ones were published in 1999 and came into force in early 2000 I think. If the building licence for your devt was applied for before then these regs would not have applied.
I think I read about the two exits somewhere in ‘Sección SI 3 – Evacuación de ocupantes’. I’m not sure how many people live in the apartment block and so I’m unsure if this regulation applies.
However, I would think that the regulation about the height and size of the roof windows does as these bedrooms are located more than 9m from the ground.
The building licence would have been granted before 1999/2000. But I will need to check to make sure this is correct.
Overall the situation is a bit of a mess. There is currently a terrace off one of the bedrooms, but this did not appear on the deeds and hence is technically ‘illegal’. The community for some inexplicable reason have requested it be closed up. But if this is removed then there is no adequate fire escape from the attic bedrooms and effectively the work of closing the terrace will mean the bedrooms no longer comply with building regulations. In addition the people living in the apartment are scared senseless of what would happen in the case of fire.
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